three snowmen

It’s the day after thanksgiving…are you still stuffed??? I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday – now we are on the home stretch for Christmas.

Here is a cute card – made with the silhouette and tools I learned at the latest class from Kerri Bradford.

I created the tag first and added the text at the bottom – then did a “print and cut”. The tree was a bit hard to cut out because it is so small but I eventually got the machine to cut. We created it from scratch – using basic shapes and putting them all together.

How about that cut VW bug? That started as a font – called Volkswagen (duh!) and in a few steps we went:

The tag itself was sponged with blue ink at the top. I stamped and embossed some random dots at the top to make it look like snow. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey.

Why is it that some people will spend money on a craft machine that has some awesome capabilities, but balk at spending a little more $$ on classes to get the best use out of it? So – all you Silhouette users out there that are struggling with this machine I am talking to you!! This machine can do so much – provided you know how to use it. The more I learn the more impressed I am. Now I know there are about a million free YouTube videos out there so why spend the bucks on a class or two? Because you don’t know what you don’t know!! You can spend hours…days…weeks…struggling with YouTube videos and still be in the very beginner stage. You will waste so much time and be so aggravated to the point where you won’t even want to use the machine. Which would be very sad!!

There are many talented people out there offering classes and I will give my recommendation to Kerri Bradford’s. (www.kerribradford.com) . She does an amazing job with her step by step videos and has several that build upon the other so you can progress easily. I can’t tell you how many times I have read on some forum or facebook group questions that I would consider very basic – things I learned in Kerri’s first classes. So for all of you who want to get the full use out of this machine take a chance on a paid class!

Today I am showing a gift card holder – and some of the cool things I learned in the latest class with Kerri. The class, Santa’s Workshop, is not really a beginners class since it builds on things learned previously.

Now, the gift card envelope is a shape that is familiar to many papercrafters – and easy to cut with the silhouette…

But let’s take a look at the details….

See the pinked edge? Or is it pinking? Well – you know what I mean – the shape you get from pinking shears! In class I learned a cool way to get that edge around the overall shape. The tag with the text was easily created in silhouette – a rectangle with the middle points adjusted. The font is Roboto and was added at an angle - the text are the words to jingle bells – a very nice design touch. Now the snowflake…no that is not a die cut or file purchased elsewhere. I created it from scratch – learned how to do it in the class. So – I know what you are thinking…isn’t it easier to just buy an image from the Silhouette store (or elsewhere)? Yes it is. But if you learn to make one from scratch you learn so much more about the design elements and what this great machine can do. And you begin to realize how much more you can make on your own and not rely on third party images. Ok – that’s my lesson for today!! Thanks for stopping by!

It’s been many, many years since I’ve been ice skating. As a child we would skate on the frozen ponds near the house – and then in the 70′s an ice skating rink was built in town so we did not have to be at the mercy of the weather! In college (University of Connecticut) there was an outdoor rink and one semester I took lessons with the skate club. I remember it being so very cold. Now that I live in Florida there are many roller rinks but no ice rinks but honestly I don’t miss the cold!!

But I want to reminisce about the wonderful winter activities so here is my ice skating card.

It is done in a very clean and simple way – the coloring is just some blue-green copic markers with grey for shading. A embossed background adds a little texture. The dark cardstock is grey a although it looks black in the photo.

This digital image from Sassy Cheryl warmed my heart when I first saw it! It was colored with copic markers – the sky was sponged with memento ink. It is hard to tell from the photo but the snow is lined with some glitter to add a little sparkle.